


i don’t believe in an interventionist god

by intelcore



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan, The Trials of Apollo - Rick Riordan
Genre: Gen, btw this IS pjo fic. this is very much pjo fic, cause that seems VERY likely, come on this journey with me? maybe ill tag this later if it doesn’t come on anyone’s feed, hmm i don’t know how to tag this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:00:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28294203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intelcore/pseuds/intelcore
Summary: Sometimes, Fate sticks you together for years. Sometimes, Fate sticks you together for half an hour.Or, maybe — you don’t meet each other because of Fate’s best attempts to bring you together. Maybe it’s in spite of its best attempts to keep you apart.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 15





	i don’t believe in an interventionist god

**Author's Note:**

> hello guys, come on this journey with me where I create unnecessary worldbuilding to facilitate unnecessary characterisation, all written in the over-expository style of a middle grade short story you find in your old textbooks
> 
> anyway. enjoy!

Adam didn’t have the time or emotional wherewithal for dying grandmothers.

It sounded so terrible, but it was the truth. Today had been a hard one. The transfer from Chicago to New York City had been a much needed change of pace, a welcome one, but his workload at the new hospital was so much more stressful than the last. Bigger, more reputed, and exponentially busier. It ate away all of his time and more than a fair bit of his peace of mind.

But whatever. He could take the late nights and early mornings, the incessant paging by his attendants, the neverending piles of paperwork and his Chief Resident’s pissy attitude on even the worst of days. As much as it sucked, he _was_ the one who had signed up for this kind of life. He’d known what he was getting into the minute he’d decided to become a doctor. He had known he would spend the rest of his life paying off the student loans for med school, being bossed around by his superiors and being puked on by his poor patients. Whatever. All of that had been — to be completely cheesy, but also completely honest — a cost he had been willing to pay for a chance to save lives.

Technically, Adam had also known that death would be a tragic but inevitable part of the life he had chosen. As terrible as it was to think about it, Adam had thought about it. He would mourn the patients he lost, he would be kind to the families he broke the news to, he would not forget the losses he witnessed, he would remember each and every one of those faces and names. But at the end of it, he would pull himself up, because he had a job to do, lives to save still. He would mourn each patient, but he would not drown in grief. His seniors had warned him that growing too attached to patients was a slippery slope, a fine balance — you wanted to be kind and warm and empathetic, but losses piled up over the years. To be a good doctor, they had said, you had to be kind and you had to remember the losses, but you also had to make peace with the presence of death.

Easier said than done. 

The thing was, it wasn’t even his day to be on call. He’d been covering a shift for a friend with a family emergency, and it was going to be like any other day. Draining. Tiring. But normal. 

And then the kid had died.

Sweet. Twelve. Brown haired and bright eyed, and so, so sick. Cassie was her name, and her green eyes had fluttered shut bare seconds before she’d flatlined. Her parents had clutched on to each other, the mom nearly collapsing to her knees while the dad buried his face in his wife’s hair and held her up. Adam had spoken to the grieving, broken parents with steady words, and disconnected the girl from life support with steady hands, and he had filled out the paperwork with his steady handwriting, but after that he’d walked out to the reception on his break and suddenly he was no longer steady. It was like he was coming apart at the seams, and Sarah, one of his friends and fellow residents put her phone down and stared at him.

“You alright?” She asked, hand still worrying the phone cord.

“Yeah, just…” Adam closed his eyes and breathed deeply. He could still hear the parents wailing down the hallway as the senior surgeon in charge spoke to them. “You know how it is. She was — uh, very young.”

Sarah nodded in sympathy, “Cassie right? I met her during rounds when I was on Dr Freehold’s service.” She tucked a strand of her red hair behind her ear. “I’m so sorry, Adam.”

“It’s okay. It’s —” Adam reached into his lab coat and pulled out his beeping pager. He groaned. “Aw, shit. Room 114.”

Sarah winced. “Oh, that’s the—“

“Yeah,” Adam sighed, stuffing the pager back into his pocket. “Jack’s off today cause of the family thing, so I’m rounding with Dr Solanki. Wish me luck.”

Old. Sweet. Terminally ill, but still extremely intelligent and alert. Jack was just one of the residents on the case, not the primary attendee, but the way he’d briefed Adam about this particular patient you’d never know it. 

Patient 114. She was famous throughout the hospital for her visitors. So sick, but so visibly loved, because there didn’t go a single day without her being visited by a steady stream of children, grandchildren and friends. A remarkable life led, clearly, a life full of overwhelming love.

Adam wondered, sometimes, how a life like that looked from the inside. Wondered it for himself.

He’d never be lonely, for one. For another, he’d never want anything more.

Adam wondered, sometimes, how anyone could get over the loss of a life like that.

He sighed again and read the name on the patient chart. It was a lovely name. Sarah gave him a sympathetic pat on the shoulder and then he was off to meet Dr Solanki.

Dr Solanki waited a second for him to catch up, then she knocked on the door to Room 114. The elderly woman inside had her eyes closed, grey hair a regal cloud on the pillow. She wasn’t sleeping, she was holding herself too stiff for that. “Ma’am? Can I come in?”

The woman opened her eyes. They were sharp eyes, warm and old, but with an intelligent sparkle. They looked like storm clouds.

“Dr Solanki, hello. How are— _Oh_ ,” the woman said, moving to sit up straighter she saw Adam. She propped herself up on her pillow. “You’re the one in for Dr Jack Sullivan? He told me he had to leave for Minnesota. Something about his sister?”

Adam nodded and offered his hand. The woman had a surprisingly firm grip. No. Not firm, _strong_. A President’s handshake. A football team captain’s handshake.

“I’m Dr Tartal,” Adam said, pushing a smile on to his face. He gestured to his clipboard. “I’ve been brought up to speed on your case—“

“Oh, it’s hopeless isn’t it?” The woman laughed gently at Adam’s inability to school his features fast enough. “Ah, I’m sorry, that was blunt. But I’m quite familiar with my disease and the odds, you see. It’s pretty hopeless. There’s not much to do.” She looked at Dr Solanki. “You’d agree, wouldn’t you, Dr Solanki?”

Dr Solanki smiled politely. Patient 114’s illness was not one with a full-stop cure, and they all knew it. It was a smile Adam knew well, a common shorthand for doctors everywhere— _yes, for all practicality, but not_ technically. While medicine was a lot about practicality, patient care was about technicalities. And tact. “There are still many options for—“

“Dr Solanki doesn’t believe in death,” the woman told him. “She doesn’t believe in my death, specifically. There’s always more options for her.” She said it with a distinct fondness; she and Dr Solanki shared a small, familiar smile. “But, alright. I’ll look into your options, Dr Solanki. You have given me months more than my prognosis ever promised.”

Dr Solanki nodded. “The nurse was here to take the temperature earlier, I believe?”

“Yes, I was running a fever, but it broke.” She pointed to Adam. “This one is shaping up to be a good doctor? As good as Dr Sullivan?”

“Dr Tartal is one of our most promising residents,” Dr Solanki said. “You are in very good hands.” She inclined her head. “I’ll get you the relevant literature, and I’ll come in to explain the treatment plan. Have a good day, ma’am.”

“You too, Doctor,” the woman said. “Thank you for everything.”

Dr Solanki shook the woman’s hand, and then with a nod at Adam, she left the room. Adam gave his chart one last once-over and was just about to take his leave as well when the woman fell back with a weary sigh, blowing a strand of grey hair from her face. 

“Dr Solanki,” she began, “is the very, very best. I quite literally owe her my life. But there _is_ no hope.”

Adam didn’t say anything. This was the most difficult part of being a doctor, these conversations. No protocol, no training. It wasn’t so much about being a doctor in these moments than it was about being a human. And there was no school for that, no degree.

_Good thing, though,_ Adam thought wryly. He was already drowning in student debt. He didn’t want to tempt Fate, or the American education system.

“I’m not sure if I’ll even make it through the night, to be honest,” the woman said. She closed her eyes. “Gods, I don’t want to die, but I really am so tired.”

Adam still didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry for unloading this on you,” the woman said at last. “Dr Tartal was it?”

This at least Adam could formulate a response to. “Yes,” he said. “And it’s alright. I don’t mind.”

“My children are running late today,” the woman said. “Weekday, you know. It’s fine, really. I’m glad. They have their own lives, and I’m glad my constant nagging them about that fact has finally gone through their heads. They’ll be here later. But this sudden silence...it’s weird.” She let out a weak chuckle and opened her eyes. “I’ve grown so used to all their overwhelming love, I’ve become greedy. I’ve not been so lonely in a while. I don’t really remember how to be.”

A look inside. Adam _had_ wondered. 

“Can you keep me some company?” The woman said. “Of course, only if you aren’t busy. I get that as a doctor—“

“It’s okay,” Adam said. He could spare a moment. The woman reminded him of his grandmother in a way, and how lonely she’d been those final weeks, wasting away in a nursing home on the other side of the country. He drew a chair and sat down next to the bed. “Unless I get paged for an emergency, I can stay.”

“I cannot thank you enough,” the woman said. “I just—I do not want to be alone, now.” She sighed. “Really, I’m lucky,” she said. “Not many get the loving family I have. Believe me, I would know.”

“Is it just your children?” Adam asked. He felt the tips of his ears burn a second later. He was being too forward with this patient. He tried to backtrack. “I mean—“

“My husband passed away ten years ago,” the woman said. Her eyes held a glimmer of sadness, but mainly she seemed amused at Adam’s flustering. “It’s alright, Dr Tartal. I _was_ the one who asked you to stay and keep me company.”

“Has it been terrible?” 

“Sad,” she said, “yes. Painful. But we had seen too many of our friends die too early to not take each day for the gift it is. He was seventy. It was a long, good life.”

Adam nodded. 

“We built something permanent in our time together,” she said firmly. She wasn’t talking to him now, not exactly. Her eyes were far away. Far away from this hospital room. Far away from _now_. “Something that will outlast us.”

“That’s—“ Adam struggled to find suitable words. This wasn’t unusual really—people were more willing to share their life stories at the end of their time. It didn’t really make it easier for Adam to react though. “That’s really good,” he finished lamely.

The woman didn’t seem to mind. She was silent for a few moments longer, eyes a million miles away, a million years away.

“Enough about me,” the woman said at last. “Let’s hear about you. You’re from New York?”

“Chicago actually,” Adam said. “Moved here last December.”

“And you like it here?” 

“Hm. It’s…” _A new start,_ Adam thought. A new place to call home. He’d worn out Chicago—Chicago with his parents who didn’t speak to each other, Chicago with his old school that had given him nothing to miss, his old hospital that had given him nothing to stay for, Chicago which was much, much bigger than him, but now felt like a glove that pinched his fingers when he wrestled it on, a place he’d outgrown and had to be left behind. “It’s happening,” he settled on. He let out a self-conscious laugh. “I mean, it’s New York. It’s happening. It’s cool.”

“Yeah, I bet. I’m not from New York originally either. But my husband was. Loved it with every fibre of his being. I do too. It’s where I found my home. My family.” The woman weaved her fingers together and looked down. When she looked up, she met his eyes with a tired, knowing expression. “It’s happening certainly. City of the gods, isn’t it?”

That was a strange way to put it, but Adam didn’t say anything. New Yorkers were fiercely and loudly proud of their city—city of the gods wasn’t really the most egotistical or absurd of claims, to be honest. More than a couple of his colleagues had called it “the greatest city in America”, a few even going as far as to say “the greatest city in the world”. Adam didn’t really have anything against the city, or in fact the claim, but he thought that was perhaps a little too bold and presumptuous of his friends, considering that hadn’t lived anywhere else.

“Forgive me if this question is too repetitive,” the woman said. She laughed. “Or too much of your classic “old grandmother you meet at a wedding” question. But I have to always ask, I’m so intrigued; medicine is a gruelling career. What made you choose it?”

A flash of green eyes. Sweet smile. A sob bursting forth as the mother went crashing to the floor, her husband’s arms reaching out to catch her even as tears slipped down his own face. Twelve years old written on a death certificate.

Gruelling was an understatement.

Adam himself wondered why he had chosen it some times.

At first it had been easy to explain—you said _I’m going to be a doctor,_ and people didn’t interrogate you on the hows and whys. They congratulated you, clapped you on the back, went _here’s a promising young man! A noble profession!_ Throughout med school he’d had his reasons, recited carefully to fortify himself during the hardest all-nighters: a good stable job, a way to help people, an interesting profession. It was a fascinating subject to study. It was a noble job, one that could save lives.

And then he _had_ become a doctor. Those reasons shifted and changed, and some days it was worth it. Some days not so much. Everyday it was different.

Today it was this—to see that there were no more Cassies. No more signed death certificates for twelve year olds. No more mothers collapsing to their knees on hospital floors, no more fathers breaking down next to them.

It wasn’t a possible wish, a probable reason. You couldn’t wipe away every tear from every eye, and you could not save every sick child you treated.

It didn’t mean he could not try, however.

That was what it had become for Adam. Trying. 

But he didn’t know how to put it in a way that felt impersonal, that didn’t feel naïve and corny, in a way that felt like he wasn’t unloading his deepest wishes on essentially a stranger. So instead he just tried to fix a grin and said, lightly, “Well, I had the scores. And I’ve always liked pushing myself.” This wasn’t the complete truth, but it wasn’t a lie either. And it was enough for a woman he had just met.

The woman seemed to accept the answer. She closed her eyes. “I guess that’s fair enough,” she said. “An ambitious young man.”

That was a way to put it.

“Do you believe in any afterlife?” 

Adam shrugged, “Not really sure? Maybe not. My family’s never been big on religion, or God or anything, so that wasn’t really something I’ve thought about.” He paused. “I’m willing to be proved wrong though. After.”

The woman chuckled. “Yeah? Open mind.”

“It would be more interesting than total oblivion, that’s for sure. Do, uh, do you believe? In any afterlife?”

The woman’s hands were clasped tight in her lap. Her good humour seemed to have been replaced by a sudden and jarring sadness, but it didn’t rattle Adam as much as he would have thought. There was something else shining through the sadness, a quiet but ferocious hope that laced her words. “Yes,” she said. “The Underworld.”

Adam’s first thought was _underground_ _crime circle_ , exhilarating despite himself. It was surprising to imagine this woman as part of any crime ring, but it would make a good story for sure. Then he remembered the grainily illustrated “Greek Mythology For Kids!” he had had in his childhood, a birthday gift from a well-meaning aunt who lived too far away and visited far too rarely to get to know his real interests. Adam has only flipped through it once half-heartedly before it had been lost or torn or given away, but he remembered the crude sketch of a dark cavern. Hades it had said. Greek afterlife.

This was probably weirder than the crime ring. But he’d met people with weirder stories. Weirder dreams and hopes. So what if this sweet old woman believed in the Greek underworld? He wasn’t one to pass judgement on people’s beliefs.

And as the people here were fond of saying of the city’s eccentricity—this was New York, after all.

“Hades?” Adam asked.

The woman’s eyes brightened. “You’re familiar?”

“Not really,” Adam said. “But I’ve heard. We all learn Greek myths in school right? Like Icarus, the Orpheus guy…” It has just been a unit in History, to be honest, learnt alongside other cultural tales from around the world. But the woman was alert now. “Something about a cave? Or was it a pit?”

The woman’s face did something complicated, a shadow, a shutter. It was gone as quickly as it came, but some of the hollowness remained in her eyes. “The pit...you mean Tartarus. That’s—well that’s part of the Greek underworld for sure, but not all of it. It’s hell.”

Adam hadn’t signed up for an impromptu Greek mythology lesson, but he guessed he was here now. “Sounds dark.”

The woman didn’t answer.

This was getting weird. Adam hurried on quickly. “Well, if this Tar place is hell, where’s the...heaven? Heaven equivalent? Like, where do the good guys go?”

“Elysium,” The woman said, looking grateful for the sudden change in subject. “The Elysian Fields.”

“The Elysian Fields,” Adam repeated. It had a ring to it, he had to admit. “Sounds—um, very peaceful.”

The woman simply smiled.

“You must really love your colleague if you’re willing to cover their extra shifts.It being Christmas season and your residency and all that. You must be busy already.”

Adam tried not to frown at the woman’s words. It wasn’t like she was wrong—Adam did love his colleagues, they had been through a lot together. Jack was a good friend, his best if he had to pick. But also, it was just _one_ shift. That wasn’t a blood pact. That was a decent thing to do. 

Adam played it off with a forced laugh. “Yeah. Basically family.”

Another moment of abrupt silence.

“That’s an important promise to keep,” the woman said. “Family.”

Okay, now Adam really _was_ confused. He loved his friends like family, but it had been—in all practical ways—a throwaway line.

Sure, it was the most common vein of conversation he’d heard from dying patients, especially the elderly ones. Unsolicited pieces of advice. _Family is everything_ , one man had told him last year, and Adam had grit his teeth and nodded, even though the word family had brought him the memory of his mother crying at him on the phone about his father’s new girlfriend. _Young kids like you don’t know how much family means till you start losing then._ Well, sometimes people didn’t have them in the first place. _Never give up on family. Never._ That was advice that only worked if everyone followed it. Often, it was just one person dragging them onto a capsized lifeboat. Adam had dismissed most of the well-meaning advice. It was advice for happy, loving homes, for happy, loving families. Blood and water.

But as much as the woman’s words rankled him, there was a hint of something else, a sort of understanding, in her words. He didn’t think she meant family as in blood. As in parents.

Adam swallowed down the bad feeling and said pleasantly, “I’ll do my best.”

“Sometimes the best isn’t enough.” For some reason, the woman’s eyes looked watery. Oh no. Oh _no_. Adam didn’t know how to approach this.

Luckily, the woman blinked her eyes and the tear was gone. A trick of the light. 

“You will keep your promise,” the woman told him, with a sort of finality. “I know that.”

She offered him her hand. Adam hesitated only a moment before taking it. It was a cold and calloused hand, smelling faintly of eucalyptus oil. 

“I don’t think I have much time left,” the woman admitted. “I’ve lived a long life. Longer than I ever thought I would get. I hope I’ve lived a good one.”

Adam didn’t trust himself to speak.

In a day full of weird, slightly off comments from the woman, these were probably the most normal words she’d spoken. Yet, they unwound him like nothing else till then had. Adam had sat with patients as they had died, had comforted them in their worst moments. He had grown used to the losses, the way you grew used to other unbearable things—you were alive, and so you bore them, because there was nothing else to do.

This felt different. All deaths were sad, but something in the woman’s touch was familiar. This felt less like sadness and more like quiet devastation. It was a tilting feeling. He had not known this woman for even an hour.

He tried to keep his tone light. “So, the aim is to make it to these Elysian Fields?”

“There’s another part of this Underworld I didn’t tell you about. Isles of the Blest,” she said.“Rebirth. I think...I’ll try thrice.”

Despite himself, Adam felt himself smiling. “Overachiever.”

The woman’s smile was worn out. “But not yet. I want to meet some people first. I want to see my husband. I’ve missed him. More than—more than I thought ever possible, and I thought every possibility, believe me. I want to see some old friends.”

The hollow, slow devastation persisted. It wasn’t unbearable, because nothing truly was, but it was a burning in his stomach. A dull ache. This was not the worst thing to happen to him, this old stranger’s death, but he could feel a weight press on him anyway, a weight like lead on his shoulders, a weight like lead in his stomach.

He wasn’t sure what else to say, but it turned out that was alright, because the next moment the door flung open. “Mom? Hey, I’m sorry we’re late. We got caught up—“

“Grandma!” A small blur of blond hair flew past him in their hurry to jump into the woman’s arms. She obliged for her part, a beaming smile on her face as she lifted her granddaughter into her lap.

“Don’t trouble Grandma,” a young lady wearing a work shirt said, coming to stand by the bed. She caught sight of Adam and gave him a small, kindly smile. “Oh, are you the new doctor?”

“Yes,” Adam replied. He got to his feet. It seemed his use as company was done. He turned to the old woman and tried to smile as genuinely as he could. “It was nice acquainting myself with you, ma’am. I’ll see you tomorrow on rounds. Have a lovely day with your family.”

“Thank you, Dr Tartal,” the woman said. Her grey eyes looked luminous as she smiled, crinkled with laugh lines. “It was nice to see you again.”

It was a jarring second in a day full of jarring seconds, but for one moment he held her gaze, and she looked—familiar. It was only a moment, right before her attention was grabbed by her granddaughter tugging on her shoulder as she began to narrate an incident from her school, but it was a buffering moment. The woman looked quite young caught in it, grey eyes and greying blonde hair that curled like a princess’s and a smile that ached with familiarity. It was gone with a shift of the light.

Adam shook it out of his mind, the weird sense of déjà vu of meeting her eyes, but he couldn’t shake off the way she seemed to have tripped over his name on its way out from her mouth. The way she seemingly swapped some other name for Dr Tartal at the last minute, a last chance at catching herself.

He couldn’t shake off the way she had said _nice to see you_. The way she seemed to have been unable to catch herself tacking on that “again” to the end of it.

* * *

_Two weeks later_

Adam saw it in Jack’s walk. He saw it in the way Dr Solanki hurried past them into the bathroom, eyes red. 

It was a strange sort of grief, mourning for a stranger essentially, but regardless, it hit him like a freight train.

“Oh,” Adam said, as Jack met his eyes and gave him a desolate shake of his head. “Oh, God. Man, I’m so sorry—“

“Thank you.” Jack’s voice was heavy. He sighed and came to join Adam at the nurse’s station in front of the OR Board. His friend closed his eyes. “Everyone knew—“ Jack cleared his throat. “We knew there was a risk. She knew there was a risk when she agreed to the surgery. Eighty years, it was always—“ He shook his head. “I have to go tell the family.”

Adam nodded. “Of course.” He clasped Jack’s shoulder as his mind wandered to the small blonde girl who’d been hefted into her grandma’s lap. The sizable entourage of visitors who trailed into Room 114 day after day. The eyes of the old woman, intelligent and alert as she held his hand on the shift he’d covered for Jack, the one day he’d spoken to her. A single hour.

A single hour with her had apparently been enough to make a mark on him.

Adam watched as Jack made the slow, lonely walk to the waiting room. Then he sighed, closed his eyes for a quick moment and went back to his chart. He had paperwork to finish, three patients left on his rounds to visit, and then the clinic. It was going to be a long day.

Thirty minutes later, he was well into his second pile of paperwork when there was a slight shuffle of feet. Adam looked up.

A young girl, maybe fifteen, sixteen, stood still in front of the OR board, electric blue eyes scanning the names. She had a silver jacket on, accessorised with buttons for bands that had lost relevance in Adam’s father’s time, bands that were now only listened to by edgy teenagers rediscovering “real” music and nostalgic old folks with YouTube accounts. Her hair was spiky, streaked blue and white.

The girl tore her eyes away from the OR board just as Adam opened his mouth to ask her if she was alright. She looked taken aback for a moment.

“Can I help you?” Adam asked.

“I’m Thalia Grace,” the girl said after a pause. “I’m looking for a woman in Room, uh—“ she put her hand in her pocket to pull out a hastily scribbled note. “Room 114? She had surgery today—“

“Oh.” Adam put his pen down. He could feel his chest constricting. Was this another granddaughter? “Oh. Um, Thalia—Thalia was it?—are your parents around? You may want to sit down fo this.”

“Oh gods,” Thalia said. “Oh gods, did—the surgery didn’t go well, did it?”

Adam didn’t have the details. “Look, I will be back with someone to explain it for you—“

“No, that’s—that’s fine, that’s…” Thalia looked like she’d been hit. “Are you sure it’s the patient in Room 114, her name—“

“Annabeth Chase passed away earlier this morning, I’m afraid,” Adam said. “There were complications in her surgery.”

Thalia seemed to wilt like a flower. No—not wilt. Sink.

“Let me get you to a place you can sit,” Adam said, moving to guide her to the waiting room. “Is there anything I can do for you? A glass of water? Can I call somebody for you?”

The girl shook her head, moving away. “No. No, it’s…” She blinked and looked up at him. “Time is weird,” she said, sounding much older than a teenager. “Time is weird. I always think I have so much more time than I do. I didn’t think—I didn’t think it would happen today.” She swallowed. She looked stunned. “It doesn’t—it doesn’t really ever get easier.”

Adam could understand very little of what the girl was saying, but he nodded anyway. “Okay. Alright.”

The girl was shaking like a leaf. Adam watched her for a few seconds before realising he _had_ to get someone—preferably Dr Solanki or Jack—to talk to this girl about Mrs Chase. No, Mrs Jackson-Chase. That was what had been on her chart.

Eventually though, the girl stopped trembling. She looked at her feet for a long, long time before her head snapped up and found his eyes. It was a thousand yard stare. It went through him. It went through him and then all of a sudden, it was no longer going through him, but was instead very, very intense.

More staring. More silence.

Adam wasn’t wholly unused to the staring. He didn’t even mind it all that much now, to be honest, even though he hadn’t been a fan of it in middle school. He had unique eyes—pretty, his mother often had said. Heterochromia, a strange yet alluring variant which gave him one eye blue and one eye a hazel that looked gold in the right light. There wasn’t anything more interesting about his face apart from that; he looked like your average twenty-something year old, with his sandy blond hair and easy smile. The only other thing uncanny about his appearance was the odd birthmark that stretched out under his right eye—a dark jagged mark, somewhat a line. But it wasn’t very noticeable unless you knew to look for it.

“Everything alright?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” Thalia said. She didn’t shift her gaze away. “Yeah—you just...you just remind me of an old friend, that’s all.”

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> thank you!! have a good last stretch of 2020, and come say hi @seavoice on tumblr!


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